“Choice” by Narween Otto

“No one else ever needs to know about this . . .”

“Sunday Smack” by Valda Moore

This Sunday morning seems different for some reason . . .

“Dancing with the Queen” by S. Douglas Hosdale

“That’s Datura—Queen of the Night.” Raphael was pointing at a large tree filled with big, cream-colored, bell-shaped flowers . . .

“Tinkerbell Forgets to Knock” by Elizabeth Roderick

Les’s twenty-foot RV was parked in the gravel drive of a little house with a sagging roof. Plastic deer nestled into the flower beds around it, among clumps of zinnias and cracked planters full of wilting petunias. Some friends of Les’s lived there with their ailing grandmother, no doubt appropriating her Social Security checks and pain meds. I’d only met them in passing, a lank-haired woman and her scraggly-mustached boyfriend.

I hated myself for being there, but I parked next to a dirty old Toyota sedan and hauled myself out of the car anyway. Fuck it, I told myself. Are you really trying to be one of those dorks with a clean life and an office job? Who are you kidding? I sank down beneath my guilt and worry, settling back into the comfortable hog wallow of my ignominy as I mounted the stairs of the RV.

The door rattled when I opened it, and I stepped in, very nearly falling back out again when I found myself at the end of a pistol . . .

“First Time, Last Time” by Robert M. Detman

Harry glances around the room, the trim freshly painted. Someone with money owns the place. Maybe Christiane’s family.

“Does anyone live here?” Harry asks.

Gem sneers at this pretense of familiarity.

“You ask too many questions, man . . .”

“Getting Bombed in Iraq” by Raymond E. Lee

A hole at the base of a crumbling T-wall was the only point of entry to the group’s hideaway. Inside they were like kids in a clubhouse. They felt safe there, the wash of incandescent lighting creating shadows from every angle. They could drink, smoke, play cards, and talk shit about everybody they worked with without fear of outsiders or superiors intruding . . .

“Brown Paper Sack Guys” by Brenda McCray

Nancy took the job at the new liquor store to supplement her shitty government salary. The liquor store allowed her to work weekends and in the evenings after leaving her regular job—only a two-minute walk from one to the other. Every morning when she walked from her car to her office, she would see the same cast of characters posted up in front of the gray-and-beige county government building, which was situated only a few blocks from the homeless mission . . .

“No. Station” by Timothy Gager

I didn’t notice I had nodded out on the train and had missed my stop until the conductor clamped down on my bony shoulders in Wellington, saying, “Come on, honey . . .”